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Jordan McLean | |
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 Mclean playing trumpet (right) | |
| Background information | |
| Born | April 24, 1974 New Rochelle, New York, USA |
| Occupation(s) | Trumpeter, composer, producer |
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| Years active | 1992–present |
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Jordan McLean (born April 24, 1974) is a New York City-based composer, arranger, bandleader, trumpeter, producer and educator. McLean has been active in the professional music world since 1995. [1]
Born in New Rochelle, New York, on April 24, 1974, McLean is the only child of Alan and Cynthia McLean (computer analyst and painter/community activist respectively).[ citation needed ] He was raised in and around New York City, including Hell's Kitchen, Astoria and Mamaroneck. At the age of six, McLean began piano lessons with Michael Raskin, son of composer Gene Raskin.[ citation needed ] McLean attended high school in Leonia, NJ. While attending high school from 1988 until 1992, McLean studied trumpet, theory and band practice, and travelled to Manhattan School of Music to attend their Pre-College program.[ citation needed ]
After high school, McLean attended the Mannes College of Music from 1992 to 1995 with a focus on Jazz Trumpet Studies. In 2003, he enrolled at SUNY Purchase, where he graduated summa cum laude in Classical Composition and was an ArtsBridge America Scholar.[ citation needed ] In 2018, he returned to SUNY Purchase to complete a master's degree in studio composition, where he studied under Jakub Cuipinski and Adam Pietrykowski. His work there was recognized with the Graduate Award in Music & Technology. [1] [2]
McLean has performed or recorded with Antibalas, Sharon Jones and The Dapkings, Charles Bradley, The Roots, Jamie Lidell, TV on the Radio, Ornette Coleman, David Byrne, St. Vincent, Patti Smith, Valerie June, Angelique Kidjo, Amadou and Miriam, Nicole Atkins, Patti LaBelle, Billy Gibbons, My Morning Jacket, The Alabama Shakes, Matisyahu, Santigold, Azelia Banks, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Cage The Elephant, Deer Tick, Tony Allen, Sinkane, Atomic Bomb, Charles Llyod, Joshua Redman, Steven Tyler, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, Lady A, Strand Of Oaks, Thievery Corporation, Lux Prima, Amy Helm, Dr. Dog, Scott McMicken, Zach Bryan, and Shantell Martin.
McLean was the regular trumpeter for Iron & Wine in 2014, travelling throughout North America and Europe as part of the Ghost on Ghost touring band, including Matt Bauder and longtime collaborator Stuart Bogie.
McLean has recorded sessions for Bosco Mann, Mark Ronson, Wyclef Jean and Tony Visconte as well as labels such as Daptone Records, Blue Note Records, Verve, Razor and Tie, Desco, Ropeadope Records, Ninja Tune, and JDub Records.
Droid
McLean formed Droid in 1998 with drummer Amir Ziv and keyboardist Adam Butler a live experimental Drum N Bass ensemble, featuring keyboardists Adam Holzman and bassists Tim Lefavbre and Yossi Fine. Their initial release, NYC DNB was on Shadow Records and had tracks remixed by DJ Spooky.[ citation needed ]
Michael Leonhart Orchestra
As a long-time member of the Michael Leonhart Orchestra, McLean has performed with Elvis Costello, Randy Brecker, Donny MacCaslin, Ian Hendrickson-Smith, Keyon Harrold, Dave Guy, Freddy Hendrix, Frank David Greene and many others as part of the orchestra's residency at The Jazz Standard.[ citation needed ]
In 2013, McLean and drummer/performance artist John Walter Bollinger contributed to the video compilation of art pieces celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Do It. The digital/vinyl release became the first release on Sound Chemistry Records which later became System Dialing Records, released in 2010.
Armo
In 2016, McLean and other members of Antibalas formed Armo, a small group performing a union of Afrobeat and avant garde Jazz.[ citation needed ] The band released a self-titled 10-inch 45 rpm EP on System Dialing Records in 2018 featuring original music by McLean and singer/pianist Amayo. The original members of the band include McLean, Amayo, singer/percussionist Marcus Farrar, bassist Justin Kimmel and guitarist Nikhil P. Yerawadekar. Frequent guest collaborators include trombonist Dave “Smoota” Smith, saxophonist Cocheme’a Gastellum, drummer Greg Gonzalez and other members of the Daptone Records family of musicians.
Around the same time as the formation of Armo, McLean co-founded the band Directors. Beginning as duo with Amir Ziv, the band expanded to include Nikhil P. Yerawadekar on bass, Ricardo Quinones on guitar and Sahr N’gaujah with whom McLean shared lead vocals. The band released a 5-song EP, ACTION!, on McLean's System Dialing Records in 2020.
The Sway Machinery
Since 2003, he has performed and recorded with The Sway Machinery, with whom he has performed in clubs and synagogues around the U.S. and festivals in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Australia and Mali, including the Festival Au Desert, outside of Timbuktu. He served as music director from 2019 to 2020 for the Because Jewish High Holidays series (with Sway Machinery as the house band) at Brooklyn Bowl and The Cutting Room. McLean has performed with The Sway Machinery in clubs and synagogues around the U.S. and festivals in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Australia and Mali, including the Festival Au Desert, outside of Timbuktu. [3]
Fire Of Space
McLean has released two albums of original music with his nine-piece group, Fire Of Space, the first produced by Binky Griptite, the second by drummer Geoff Mann. The title track of their second album "Handbasket" is featured in the film Sleepwalk with Me. [4]
The Lonesome Prairie Dogs
As a member of The Lonesome Prairie Dogs (featuring Lenny Kaye), McLean arranged and produced the recording of the band's EP on Dala Records, recorded at Dunham Studios in Bushwick, Brooklyn. McLean's work as a recording artist includes sessions for producers such as Bosco Mann, Mark Ronson, Wyclef Jean, Joel Hamilton, Josh Kaufman and Tony Visconte as well as labels such as Warner Music, Color Red Music, Daptone Records, Blue Note Records, Verve, Razor and Tie, Desco, Ropeadope Records, Ninja Tune, and JDub Records.[ citation needed ]
McLean has played Istanbul Jazz Festival and Montreux Jazz Festival, Bonnaroo, Coachella, WOMAD and many others, and toured coast-to-coast for two consecutive years playing the Canadian Jazz Festival circuit. [5]
Television Appearances
McLean's compositions have been performed in New York and Europe by contemporary music ensembles such as Cadillac Moon Ensemble [6] and Till By Turning. [7] He has adapted and conducted Mauricio Kagel's Music For Renaissance Instruments [8] and actively commissions promising young arrangers for radical re-orchestrations of masterworks. Most recently he was commissioned by The Bronxville Public Library for a dance suit Bronze In The Digital Age”, [9] [ failed verification ] a multi-media piece based on five sculptures by Pierre Rodin, and a new work, PANGRAM, for Siren Baroque chamber orchestra. Along with Herbie Hancock, he was a spokesman for The 2013 UNESCO International Jazz Day. [4]
As a bandleader, McLean has released two albums of original music with his nine-piece group, Fire Of Space. The title track of their album “Handbasket” is featured in the film Sleepwalk with Me . [10] The group has performed in venues throughout New York and Chicago, including as an opening act for Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. McLean was a musical director for a suite of High Holiday services held at New York's Brooklyn Bowl. [11]
As an educator, McLean has been an adjunct professor of musicology at his alma mater, SUNY Purchase. He teaches composition at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, [12] where he completed jazz trumpet studies, and has worked with LEAP (Learning through an Expanded Arts Program) as a visiting artist in NYC public schools.
In 2010, McLean founded System Dialing Records with drummer, Amir Ziv. Together they formed the electro-acoustic group DROID, including theBrazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista and former Miles Davis music director Adam Holzman. McLean and Ziv have also started the duo Directors, focusing on creating music for film score, albums and live performance. Since the label's creation, McLean has produced a solo album for Jeremiah Lockwood, produced and released a solo album of his own entitled World Gone Mad and most recently released the full-length studio album New Vocabulary in collaboration with Ornette Coleman and Adam Holzman. [13] [14]
| Year | Album | Artist | Credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Seconds | Hot Mustard | Composer, Trumpet |
| 2023 | Shabang | Scott McMicken and THE EVER EXPANDING | Trumpet |
| 2022 | Never Ready | Hot Mustard | Trumpet |
| 2022 | All This Time/Lonesome Nile | The Lonesome Prairie Dogs | Co-producer, Arranger, Trumpet |
| 2022 | The Prophets in the City | The Bogie Band feat. Joe Russo | Trumpet |
| 2022 | The Normyn Suites | Michael Leonhart Orchestra | Trumpet |
| 2021 | Mother Sauce | Hot Mustard | Composer, Trumpet |
| 2021 | Open Door Policy | the Hold Steady | Trumpet |
| 2020 | Large Format | Jeremy Wilms | Co-Producer |
| 2020 | Fu Chronicles | Antibalas | Trumpet |
| 2020 | Starstruck | Starstruck | Co-Producer |
| 2019 | Thrashing Thru the Passion | the Hold Steady | Trumpet |
| 2019 | Suite Extracts Vol. 1 | Michael Leonhart Orchestra | Trumpet |
| 2019 | I Need A New War | Craig Finn | Trumpet |
| 2019 | Armo | Armo | Producer, Composer, Vocals, Trumpet |
| 2019 | Loopstock | Loopstock | Producer, Composer, Vocals, Trumpet |
| 2018 | Action! | Director | Co-producer, Composer, Vocals, Trumpet |
| 2017 | Undercurrent | Matisyahu | Trumpet |
| 2016 | Drum For Your Life | Pop It! | Co-producer, Composer, Arranger, Trumpet |
| 2015 | Lorenzo 2015 CC. | Jovanotti | Trumpet |
| 2015 | Purity and Danger | The Sway Machinery | Trumpet |
| 2015 | You Will Love No One But Me | The Sway Machinery | Trumpet |
| 2014 | New Vocabulary | Ornette Coleman | Trumpet, Electronics, Co-producer |
| 2014 | Lockwood | Jeremiah Lockwood | Producer |
| 2014 | Azealia Banks | Broke With Expensive Taste | Trumpet |
| 2014 | Give The People What They Want | Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings | Trumpet |
| 2013 | A Color Map of the Sun | Pretty Lights | Trumpet |
| 2013 | B-Room | Dr. Dog | Trumpet |
| 2012 | Antibalas | Antibalas | Group Member, Trumpet, Vocals (Background) |
| 2012 | Folilla | Amadou & Mariam | Trumpet |
| 2012 | Love this Giant | David Byrne | Trumpet |
| 2011 | The House of Friendly Ghosts, Vol. 1 | The Sway Machinery | Field Recording, Group Member, Trumpet |
| 2011 | The Physical EP | Superhuman Happiness | Trumpet |
| 2010 | Fela! Original Broadway Cast Album | Various Artists | Arranger, Composer, Musical Director, Trumpet |
| 2010 | Õÿö | Angélique Kidjo | Horn |
| 2009 | Fall Down Seven Times Stand Up Eight | Stuart Bogie | Trumpet |
| 2009 | Hidden Melodies Revealed | The Sway Machinery | Group Member, Trumpet |
| 2009 | Multiply/Jim | Jamie Lidell | Horn, Trumpet |
| 2008 | Snowblind | Smith, Erica | Flugelhorn, Trumpet |
| 2008 | Soul Men: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | Various Artists | Trumpet |
| 2008 | Green Sparrow | Mike Gordon | Trumpet |
| 2008 | The Sway Machinery' | The Sway Machinery | Member of Attributed Artists, Trumpet |
| 2007 | Djin Djin | Angélique Kidjo | Horn |
| 2007 | Security | Antibalas | Composer, Flugelhorn, Trumpet |
| 2007 | 60x60: 2006 & 2007 | Composer | |
| 2006 | American Primitive | Jeremiah Lockwood | Main Personnel, Trumpet |
| 2006 | Note Bleu: The best of the Blue Note Years 1998–2005 | Medeski, Martin & Wood | Flugelhorn, Trumpet |
| 2006 | People | HiM | Flugelhorn, Member of Attributed Artist, Trumpet |
| 2006 | Zen of Logic | DJ Logic | Trumpet |
| 2005 | Batten the Hatches | Jenny Owen Youngs | Flugelhorn |
| 2005 | Multiply | Jamie Lidell | Horn, Main Personnel, Trumpet |
| 2005 | The Low Lows | Parker and Lily | Trumpet |
| 2004 | Somos Cordero | Cordero | Group Member, Trumpet |
| 2004 | Who is This America? | Antibalas | Composer, Group Member, Member of Attributed Artist, Trumpet |
| 2003 | Age of Epoch | Fire of Space | Trumpet |
| 2003 | Cool Rock | Chris Lee | Trumpet |
| 2003 | Here to There | DJ Spinna | Percussion |
| 2002 | Red Hot + Riot: The Music and Spirit of Fela Kuti | Trumpet | |
| 2002 | Talkatif | Antibalas | Trumpet |
| 2002 | Uninvisible | Medeski, Martin & Wood | Flugelhorn, Trumpet |
| 2001 | In the Raw | Whitefield Brothers | Trumpet |
| 2001 | Liberation Afro Beat, Vol. 1 | Antibalas | Trumpet |
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman was an American jazz saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, and composer. He is best known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation. His pioneering works often abandoned the harmony-based composition, tonality, chord changes, and fixed rhythm found in earlier jazz idioms. Instead, Coleman emphasized an experimental approach to improvisation rooted in ensemble playing and blues phrasing. Thom Jurek of AllMusic called him "one of the most beloved and polarizing figures in jazz history," noting that while "now celebrated as a fearless innovator and a genius, he was initially regarded by peers and critics as rebellious, disruptive, and even a fraud."
John Lenwood McLean was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and educator. He is one of the few musicians to be elected to the DownBeat Hall of Fame in the year of their death.
Frederick Dewayne Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives for modern jazz and bebop.
Ronald Shannon Jackson was an American jazz drummer from Fort Worth, Texas. A pioneer of avant-garde jazz, free funk, and jazz fusion, he appeared on over 50 albums as a bandleader, sideman, arranger, and producer. Jackson and bassist Sirone are the only musicians to have performed and recorded with the three prime shapers of free jazz: pianist Cecil Taylor, and saxophonists Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler.
Charles Edward Haden was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than fifty years. Haden helped to revolutionize the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz, evolving a style that sometimes complemented the soloist, and other times moved independently, liberating bassists from a strictly accompanying role.
James Emory Garrison was an American jazz double bassist. He is best remembered for his association with John Coltrane from 1961 to 1967.
Antibalas is an American, Brooklyn-based afrobeat band founded in 1998 by Martín Perna. Initially inspired by Fela Kuti's Africa 70 band and Eddie Palmieri's Harlem River Drive Orchestra, the music generally follows the musical architecture and language of afrobeat and incorporates elements of jazz, funk, dub, improvised music, and traditional drumming from Cuba and West Africa.
Charles Lloyd is an American jazz musician. He primarily plays tenor saxophone and flute and occasionally other reed instruments, including alto saxophone and the Hungarian tárogató. Lloyd's primary band since 2007 has been a quartet including pianist Jason Moran, acoustic bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Eric Harland.
In All Languages is a 1987 double album by Ornette Coleman. Coleman and the other members of his 1950s quartet, trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Billy Higgins, performed on one of the two records, while his electrified ensemble, Prime Time, performed on the other. Many of the songs on In All Languages had two renditions, one by each group.
Daptone Records is a funk and soul independent record label based in Brooklyn, New York. Best known as the home of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and Charles Bradley, the label boasts a roster which includes Menahan Street Band, The Budos Band, The Sugarman 3, and Antibalas, and runs the recording studio Daptone's House of Soul.
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings were an American funk and soul band signed to Daptone Records. They were part of a revival movement of mid-1960s to mid-1970s style funk and soul music. They released their debut album Dap Dippin' in 2002, the first of seven studio albums. Their 2014 album Give the People What They Want was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. Following Sharon Jones' death in 2016, the band released the posthumous album Soul of a Woman in 2017 and a compilation of cover songs in 2020.
Chris Kelsey is an American-born jazz saxophonist, composer, music critic, and novelist. His music draws on bebop, free jazz, free improvisation, funk, and fusion, and is augmented by elements of non-tonal, contemporary classical music. His fiction is inspired by such crime writers as Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, and Dashiell Hammett. As a musician, Kelsey has worked almost exclusively as a leader of his own ensembles, usually trios and quartets. From the late 1980s, his principal instrument has been soprano saxophone, though in recent years he has recorded and performed on tenor and alto, as well. Kelsey has recorded nearly twenty albums under his own name, many for the C.I.M.P. label. With rare exceptions, he has recorded and performed his own original compositions. His first novel, Where the Hurt Is, was published in 2018 by Black Rose Writing. As a critic, he has written for leading jazz publications and web sites, including Jazziz, JazzTimes, Cadence, AllMusic, and Jazz.com.
The Avant-Garde is an album credited to jazz musicians John Coltrane and Don Cherry that was released in 1966 by Atlantic Records. It features Coltrane playing several compositions by Ornette Coleman accompanied by the members of Coleman's quartet: Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Ed Blackwell. The album was assembled from two unissued recording sessions at Atlantic Studios in New York City in 1960.
The Budos Band is an American instrumental band from Staten Island, New York, formed in 2005. AllMusic describes the group as a "doom rock Afro-soul big band with a '70s touch" that joins "musical universes from trippy psychedelia and Afro-funk to '70s hard rock and late-'60s soul." They have described themselves as "70's Psychedelic Instrumental Music," and "Afro-soul inspired by Ethiopian music with a soul undercurrent" and "sprinkled a little bit of sweet 60's stuff on top." One reviewer described the band as “sounding as if Quentin Tarantino was the music supervisor for a Bond film". Their more recent albums have incorporated sounds from 1970s jazz, funk, Afro-Beat, underground rock, and proto-metal. They have been signed to Daptone Records throughout their career.
Stuart D. Bogie is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and music producer. Originally from Evanston, Illinois, Bogie became a staple in the Brooklyn music scene.
Victor Axelrod is an American musician, producer, and audio engineer from Brooklyn, New York. Since the mid-1990s, he has worked primarily in the genres of reggae, Afrobeat and soul, recording and producing under his own name and using the alias Ticklah.
New and Old Gospel is an album by American saxophonist Jackie McLean recorded in 1967 and released on the Blue Note label. It features McLean in a quintet with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, pianist LaMont Johnson, bassist Scotty Holt and drummer Billy Higgins.
Michael Wagner, sometimes credited as Menashe Yaakov and Don Bonus, is an American musician and producer based in Long Beach, New York. He played on many early Daptone Records releases and, with bands The Daktaris and Antibalas, helped inspire new interest in Nigerian funk and afrobeat music in America during the late nineties. After becoming a Hasidic Jew in 2004, he returned to New York and formed several bands with musicians in the local Jewish community, most notably the hardcore punk band Moshiach Oi!.
New Vocabulary is an album by saxophonist Ornette Coleman, trumpeter Jordan Mclean, drummer Amir Ziv, and, on three tracks, pianist Adam Holzman. It was recorded during July 18–20, 2009, in New York City, and was released in 2014 by the System Dialing label.
(Abraham) "Duke" Amayo is a Nigerian musician, composer, singer, and former frontman of the Afrobeat band Antibalas for 23 years.
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